


Home for the Holidays

by HiddenTreasures (lastbluetardis)



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Reunions, Romance, Telepathy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-02
Updated: 2020-01-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:36:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22085758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lastbluetardis/pseuds/HiddenTreasures
Summary: Despite being locked away in different universes, the Doctor and Rose have managed to stay connected through their marriage bond, celebrating holidays and special events even through the impenetrable distance. After celebrating three Christmases apart, fate brings them together once more just in time for the holidays.
Relationships: Tenth Doctor/Rose Tyler
Comments: 16
Kudos: 89





	Home for the Holidays

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TimeLadyHope](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TimeLadyHope/gifts).



> This is part one of my gift to @timeladyelpia (TimeLadyHope) for the @dwsecretsanta gift exchange over on Tumblr.
> 
>  **Note:** If anybody remembers this little ficlet ([If Only in My Dreams](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16805698/chapters/39760293)) I wrote for last year’s Ficmas, I borrowed from that idea and wrote the reunion. However, you do NOT need to have read that in order to understand this.
> 
> Ten x Rose, 4400 words, Teen

The holidays were one of the hardest times for the Doctor. Though he didn’t naturally celebrate—at least not any Earth or human holiday—Rose had. Oh, he would join in the festivities with his past companions, wishing them Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Joyous Festivus, or whatever holiday they in particular celebrated, but he was always on the outside looking in.

But all of that had changed when he’d met Rose, when he regenerated into his current body and left her and the Earth to fend for themselves during a Sycorax invasion while he was—helpfully—in a regenerative coma. All on Christmas Day.

When it all had blown over—blown up, more like it, thanks to Harriet Jones, former Prime Minister—he had strangely been invited to Christmas dinner at the Tylers’. Even more strangely, he’d said yes. After he changed, of course. He couldn’t very well have Christmas dinner in his borrowed jimjams. No, he’d gone back to his TARDIS and found himself a new outfit before heading back up to Rose and her mother.

Even now, remembering the look of appreciation in Rose’s eyes when she beheld him in his new suit sent butterflies through his stomach.

He had stayed for dinner and the snow-that-wasn’t-snow and for dessert. And even once that was finished, once the food was cleared away and the dishes piled high in the sink for the following morning, he hadn’t wanted to leave quite yet. So he had accepted Rose’s invitation to sleep on the sofa for the night. Not that Time Lords needed much sleep. (However, newly-regenerated Time Lord could certainly use a nap.)

He had spent the next couple weeks with the Tylers, which was virtually unheard of for him. But the TARDIS had been in no shape to fly, thanks to whatever jiggery-pokery Rose had done to the old girl to look into her heart to become the Bad Wolf. And thanks to his less-than-stellar driving while his brain was imploding and collapsing during some regeneration complications. 

No matter, he had been able to get his beloved ship flying again a week or so after the New Year. In the interim, between TARDIS repairs, he had reconnected with Rose. Answering all of her questions regarding regeneration. Filling in the gaps of her memory during her time as Bad Wolf. Recounting all of their adventures together to prove to her, without a doubt, that he was still the Doctor. Still _her_ Doctor, though he’d never exactly stated it as such.

(Little did he know then that Rose had already considered him her Doctor. She later confessed to him that his earnest attempts to convince her of his identity had been endearing.)

On the evening before he and Rose were to depart for the stars once more, Rose had stayed up late with him in Jackie’s living room and had presented him with a small package. She had seemed slightly embarrassed or self-conscious as he ripped into the brown-paper-wrapped parcel; she had begun rambling about traditions and new beginnings and something about “together”, which he very much liked to think about. He liked the idea of him and Rose together forever.

Upon indelicately ripping off the wrapping paper, he saw a simple white box. When he removed the lid, a Christmas ornament lay nestled in a soft bed of shredded cotton. His hearts had constricted in his chest as he pulled out the ornament, two penguins clad in hats and scarves leaning in to touch the tips of their beaks together. Beneath, in an elegant script, were the words “The Doctor + Rose’s First Christmas” and the year.

“I know it’s silly,” Rose said, still looking anywhere but him. “Christmas is over now, and it’s not like we even had a tree in the TARDIS to put it on, but I saw it and couldn’t resist. Obviously, I wrote in our names. Not many ornaments have ‘the Doctor’ written on ‘em.”

He pulled her into his arms, silencing her words. “It’s perfect,” he said through the lump in his throat. “Tell you what. We can put it up on the tree next Christmas. And get another ornament to go with it. Eh? Can be a tradition.”

Rose wrinkled her nose. “You put up a Christmas tree in that box of yours?”

“Not usually,” he admitted. “But you celebrate Christmas. I want the TARDIS to feel like home for you, and if celebrating all of your little human holidays makes it feel like home, then I want to celebrate with you, however you’d like. If you’d like.”

Her expression softened and she smiled shyly at him. “The TARDIS is already my home, Doctor.”

The admission both floored and delighted him. A big, beaming grin split his face in two, and the echoing expression lit up her face too.

He very nearly kissed her then, and he spent the rest of the night, after Rose had gone to bed, cursing himself for not seizing the opportunity.

No matter. They got there eventually, after a few hiccups in the road.

By the time their second Christmas rolled around, they were an actual proper couple, and they went shopping together not only for their first Christmas tree, but also for the companion to the penguin ornament. They’d decided on two polar bears decorating a Christmas tree together, snouts pressed together in a supposed kiss.

They had bought other decorations as well, but they displayed their couples’ ornaments proudly on the front of the tree, making sure no branches, lights, or baubles obscured them from view.

“I wonder how long it’ll take before we have enough couples’ ornaments to decorate the tree just with them,” Rose mused as they de-decked their tree after the holidays. “Ages and ages, I’ll bet.”

“Well, it’s a good thing we’ve got ages and ages,” he replied, a goofy grin on his face. “Forever, in fact.”

And they did. They had forever together. Whatever Rose had done as Bad Wolf had changed her at the cellular level. Her body wasn’t breaking down at all; it had enough regenerative energy—courtesy of the TARDIS—to replenish any aged and dying cells before they turned hazardous. For all intents and purposes, she would live just as long as the Doctor. Longer, perhaps.

Upon realizing what that meant for them, for their future together, they decided to bind themselves together in every way possible. One soul in two bodies. At least, that was how Rose had liked to think of it when he had explained the telepathic marriage bond. An open channel between them, their minds, allowing them to see the most intimate parts of the other.

There had been no one the Doctor had wanted to share that sort of connection with, apart from Rose. There had never been anyone like her before—nobody he loved as deeply, fiercely, wholly, eternally—and there would never be anyone like her again.

Not even now that she was gone.

It had been over three years since Torchwood. Since Canary Wharf. Since the Daleks and Cybermen and parallel worlds and Void breaches that ended with the multiverse being saved, but with Rose being trapped permanently in another world.

In those first few moments, as he watched the Void breach fold in on itself like a crumpled piece of paper, the Doctor had held his breath and tensed for the inevitable slash of pain in his mind as his bond with Rose broke. But when a minute passed, then two, then ten and his bond with Rose was still there, he relaxed a fraction.

The anguish and desperation clanging from her half of the bond was what kept him sane, funnily enough. Regardless of their mutual devastation, the fact that he could still feel her in his mind meant he hadn’t truly lost her. She wasn’t truly gone. He wasn’t truly alone.

It had taken months for them to adapt and adjust to their new reality. Time moved around them differently; Pete’s World, as he’d dubbed it, moved slightly faster than their prime universe. And time didn’t really exist in the TARDIS. However, they tried to sync their internal body clocks with each other, to sleep and eat and relax at the same time to make up for the fact that they weren’t physically with each other.

Despite having his wife in his head at all times, he still missed her. He missed her more with every passing day. Nevertheless, they had coped as best they could.

However, the holidays still hurt. It hurt to try to celebrate with Rose when she was—literally—worlds away. Universes away. It hurt to go out and get a Christmas tree. It hurt to decorate it. But above all, it hurt to pick out and purchase their couples’ ornament alone. He’d had to pick out the last three on his own, and if his calculations were correct—which they were, because he was quite brilliant—he would be needing to go out and buy a new one soon. Their sixth overall, the fourth he would buy alone.

Despite Rose’s confidence in the Dimension Cannon—a clever bit of technology that the Torchwood researchers and engineers in Pete’s World had been developing for well over a year now—it seemed as though the Cannon hadn’t worked enough to bring her back to this world in time for Christmas.

But he didn’t care when she came home. He just cared that she _did_ come home. One day.

He had been skeptical of the Cannon when Rose first informed him of its creation, but now that it began showing signs of life—acting as a crude teleport—he was cautiously optimistic that one day it would work. Once he or any of the Torchwood scientists managed to figure out how to poke a hole through the Void, through the fabric of reality, large enough for Rose to squeeze through, but small enough that the entire microcosm of the multiverse didn’t implode in the process. It was a delicate balancing act.

However, now that Rose was busy testing the Dimension Cannon, letting it blast her to whatever corner of her universe it fancied, their bond was a little more strained and out of sync. It had nearly given him a hearts-attack when she went utterly silent one day, only to reappear in his mind hours later as though nothing had happened.

She had since taken to warning him about when she was planning a Cannon jump so he wouldn’t be alarmed if she disappeared from his head for a few hours. Though he appreciated it, it didn’t stop his anxiety from squeezing a tight band around his chest. Every time her half of the bond went quiet, he feared he would never hear from her again.

Inevitably, though, she always returned. She would always return.

He had taken to running errands on the days she did her Cannon jumps. Not only did it distract him from the silence in his head, but it gave him a break from trying to keep his body clock synced with Rose’s. He didn’t need to concern himself about when or where he went, or for how long.

On one particular day in the beginning of December—for Rose, at least… Pete’s World had gotten completely out of sync with their universe by now—the Doctor had decided to visit Ghealach, a small moon on the other end of the galaxy that was basically a junk shop masquerading as a bazaar. The unique feature of Ghealach, however, was that it was utterly psy-null. Telepathy was strictly forbidden as a security measure; the shop owners didn’t want a telepathic being creeping into their heads to swindle them out of money and supplies.

As such, if the Doctor were to go to Ghealach, it meant his bond with Rose would be silenced.

 _I’ll be there for just a few hours_ , he told her that morning. _I should be done by the time you’re back, but in the event that I’m not, I don’t want you to worry._

_Thanks for telling me. Stay safe, Doctor._

He snorted. _I’m not the one blasting myself to the gods know where._

He got the impression she was sticking her tongue out at him, and so he rolled his eyes right back.

 _Be safe_ , he murmured, passing a kiss and a caress down their bond.

He piloted himself to Ghealach but stayed in the TARDIS until Rose’s presence faded from his mind, indicating she’d gone on her jump.

Wearily, the Doctor rubbed at his eyes and at the dull throb that pulsed behind his temples. Ignoring the ache, he grabbed his overcoat, swung it around his shoulders, and exited the TARDIS.

Ghealach was bustling with activity. All sorts of creatures were buying and selling, bartering and trading. While he usually loved the atmosphere—all of those people, all that _life_ —he couldn’t stomach it today.

So he moved with a purpose, knowing where he could find the parts that he needed to fix the TARDIS. Well, not exactly fix, as nothing was technically broken. But the mechanisms behind the fine-tune precision needed for landing at the coordinates he set must be going a bit faulty. He was landing in an incorrect time or location more often than usual.

If Rose were there, she would’ve teased him about his poor piloting skills.

Pushing that thought aside, the Doctor strode from tent to tent, turning out his pockets to exchange whatever baubles and trinkets and bits of alien tech he happened to have.

It took nearly two hours, but he finally had all of the pieces he had sought out to find, plus a few extra bits he didn’t need but might one day have use for.

It took another half hour or wandering to find the TARDIS again. He hadn’t realized how far he had wandered into the labyrinthine stalls of the market. But he finally beheld his glorious ship. It was odd not to hear her welcoming hum as he approached. Even his bond with his ship was muted on this moon.

He slid his key into the lock and turned it, pushing the door inward. Her central rotor gleamed in welcome and the lights flickered between bright and dull. As soon as he closed the door behind him, leaving the psy-null territory, he felt his ship’s utter joy and delight.

“I missed you too,” he cooed to his ship, affectionately rubbing one of the coral struts as he draped his coat across it.

It was only when he’d skipped up to the center console that he realized his ship wasn’t the sole presence in his mind.

 _Oh! You’re back earlier than I thought,_ he said, cringing. _Sorry, love. Didn’t think I'd be on that moon for so long._

“Doctor.”

Her voice was faint and breathless, and the Doctor clenched his jaw; it sounded as though she was right beside him. He was getting bombarded with a mixture of emotions, strong ones at that. Stronger than he usually felt from their strained bond.

_What’s the matter? Everything all right? Jump go okay?_

“It’s you… It’s really, actually _you_.”

He frowned at the display controls of his ship as he worked on sending her into flight. Rose was coming across clearly. He could read every thread of thought and emotion: disbelief, confusion, love, hurt, happiness, desperation. All of it. Everything that was going on inside that beautiful head of hers was broadcast for him to see.

But if he could sense her so easily, then that meant…

 _Where are you?_ he asked, frantically tugging the display screen so close to his face that his nose nearly brushed it. He typed at the keyboard fervently, even though he had no coordinates to input. _I’ll find you, Rose. I will find you. Gods, you’re here. Where are you? I’ll find you._

A choked sob sounded from his wife, and he reached into himself, into their bond, to cradle her close. A maelstrom hit him, and he couldn’t seem to soothe her, no matter how much comfort and love he swaddled her in.

_I know, love. I know. We’re so close. All these years and you’ve finally done it. You’re brilliant, you are. We’re so close now. Just tell me where you are and I’ll come get you and bring you home. But I need to know where you are._

“Turn around.”

_Turn around? What? Where are you, Rose? I need as much information as you can give me so I can find you._

“Turn. Around.”

His mind was still churning even as something—someone—touched his shoulder. Fingers gripped his shoulder hard and tugged. Spinning on his heel, his jaw slackened as he beheld the blonde standing before him. Rose. His wife. His bondmate. His everything.

“Rose?” he croaked, clenching his hands into fists at his side.

She looked nearly the same as the day he’d lost her. The planes of her face had sharpened, the roundness of youth having faded over the years, and her hair was a gentler shade of blonde, seemingly professionally dyed rather than a cheap bit of bleaching product she found in the shops.

His eyes roved across her face hungrily, urgently willing her to be real, as his mind sought her out. He hadn’t realized how muffled their bond had become, separated as they were through universes, but now it was in perfect focus, at full power. It was as though a radio station that had been staticky was now tuned.

And all of the emotions swirling through both of their minds was being broadcast on all frequencies. Shock and disbelief and tentative, delicate hope.

“Oh, Doctor!”

Rose launched herself at him, pulling him from his stupor. He wrapped his arms tightly around her, holding her as close as he could. Her warm, small body contoured to his, pressing against every inch of him until there was no space left between them.

Her hands scrabbled at his back, searching for better purchase to cling to him. He buried his nose into the soft spot where her shoulder met her neck and breathed in deeply, inhaling the smell of her. She smelled like energy and electricity, but beneath that was the familiar scent of Rose. Of home.

“What… How…?”

“It worked,” she said, her voice warbling. “The Cannon… it worked. With a bit of help. Needed a bit of alien tech to help brace the Void open, then close it up behind me. Some friendly aliens helped out with that. Though they said the fabric of that reality was already fragile. Not sure what that was about. Torchwood promised to look into it, and I said we’d look into it from this side of things.”

“Fragile?” he asked, pulling away from her. “How can the fabric of reality become ‘fragile’?”

Rose looked like she was about to open her mouth, perhaps to offer her input, but the Doctor realized he didn’t particularly want to talk about the fabric of reality or the universe or anything that wasn’t Rose.

He shook his head and cradled Rose’s jaw in her palm, brushing his thumb against her lower lip. She sighed, her warm breath ghosting across his hand.

“I’ve missed you,” he rasped, raking his eyes over her face to recommit every detail to memory. She was even more beautiful, more breathtaking, than he remembered. “So much, Rose. There wasn’t a day that went by that I didn’t miss you. And I know we were never truly apart, but…”

Rose rocked up onto her toes, fisted her hands in the lapels of his suit, and tugged him down until their mouths met in a hard kiss. All thoughts left his mind as he lost himself in her. The taste of her, the touch of her, the smell of her, the sound of her, the sight of her. His senses were utterly overwhelmed by her, and he wouldn’t have it any other way. Pleasure sparked through his veins as their lips moved together in a familiar rhythm of pulling and yielding, sliding and gliding.

A full-body shudder rippled down his spine as his mouth parted for her probing tongue. The little whimper she let out weakened his knees and he stumbled back a step until his backside pressed against the central console of the TARDIS.

Rose followed, not breaking the kiss. The Doctor braced himself against the console, more than willing to let Rose cage him in, resting her weight against his. Their bodies moved together, rocking and writhing as their hands explored every inch of each other that they’d been deprived of for three and a half years.

“I missed you,” he murmured between frantic kisses. “I love you.”

 _I love you_ , he whispered into her mind. His half of the bond wrapped around her half even tighter than his body wrapped around hers, needing to feel her everywhere, needing to hold her close to convince himself that this was real, that she was real, and that she was here with him.

“I’m here,” she mumbled against his mouth. _I’m here. I’m back. I came back. I love you. I love you._

Her hands moved restlessly across his body, alternating between pressing into the small of his back and his hair. Desire rippled through him as their hips and legs tangled together, rubbing and grinding and relishing all of the sensations they’d been deprived of for these many long years.

Sure, they’d had the mental presence of each other during their separation, but no number of mental embraces could replace a real hug, of being ensconced in another’s arms, two bodies inhabiting one space.

A deep groan rumbled up the Doctor’s chest as he devoured Rose’s mouth. The bedroom was too far away for the utter need throbbing through them both. Hastily removing all necessary pieces of clothing, they joined together on the raggedy old jump seat. Their bodies moved as one, touching and kissing and teasing and tasting until their coupling culminated in the pinnacle of pleasure and love.

Afterwards, they sat slumped together, panting for breath and clinging to each other. The Doctor skated his fingertips up and down the smooth expanse of Rose’s spine. She still had her shirt on, and the fabric bunched and fell with every up and down motion of his hand.

“I love you,” he said groggily, pressing a series of kisses to the column of her throat. His mind was blissfully blank and full of Rose. She was everywhere, filling the deep, dark expanse of his mind with her light and warmth.

“You feel so good,” she sighed, nuzzling closer physically and mentally. “I hadn’t realized how faint our bond had become. But now… God.”

“Mmm,” he hummed in agreement. Then he asked the question that had slowly been eating away at him. “How long were you waiting in here? How did you even find the ship? That moon… you wouldn’t have been able to feel her—or me.”

“Maybe a half hour,” Rose said. “Felt like an eternity. But then I reminded myself that I was lucky enough to have found the TARDIS at all. I would’ve been devastated to know I’d landed here but just missed you.”

He would’ve been devastated too. Even more horrifying was the idea that Rose wouldn’t even have been able to reach out for him to tell him where she was, what with that telepathic dampener suppressing their bond.

“But I was just wandering around when I found the TARDIS,” Rose continued. “I nearly walked right by her at first, ‘cos I didn’t think the jump had actually worked. I figured I was on an alien planet in that other universe. But then I walked past her and the door just… clicked open. That’s when I turned and saw her, and I ran right in.

“But then I wasn’t sure which version of you it would be. Everything about the TARDIS looked the same, so I figured I wasn’t too far off. Then I was beginning to think about how I would explain everything if it was a past you. Especially if it was a past you who hadn’t met me yet; how on Earth would I explain to you who I was and why you needed to help me.”

“The marriage bond would’ve been proof enough,” he assured her, tapping at his temple for emphasis. “The bond transcends time, through regenerations, past and present. No matter which version of me walked through those doors, I would have known who you are.”

“Thank God it was you,” she said. “Though for a minute there I thought I went mad and was invisible.”

He offered her a sheepish grin. “Sorry. I didn’t think to look around the TARDIS. I didn’t expect anyone to be in here.”

She smirked at him, then nestled her head into the crook of his neck, letting out a sated sigh Despite the sound of utter contentment, she murmured, “We should get up.”

“Or we could stay here like this forever,” he countered.

“As wonderful as that sounds, my legs are going half numb,” she retorted. “And I feel disgusting. I could use a shower, if you’d care to join me?”

His belly swooped in renewed desire as he nodded fervently. Rose grinned at him, her tongue poking teasingly out of the corner of her mouth. He pinched her bum for her cheek, causing her to shriek with laughter and swat at his hand.

A daft grin settled across his face at the sound. Oh, how he’d _missed_ her.

He couldn’t help but lean up to plant a row of tiny kisses across her jaw, beginning at the sensitive skin beneath her ear and working his way to the corner of her mouth. He felt her cheek lift in a smile as her hand went to the back of his head to keep him where he was. As if he would ever wish to stop kissing her.

“Shower?” he mumbled against her skin, slowly making a path down her neck.

“Mhm,” she hummed distractedly.

He laughed softly and pressed a final kiss to the hollow of her throat. “Come on. Let’s get cleaned up.”

Rose heaved a great sigh but dutifully lifted herself off of his lap to stand on wobbly legs. He followed suit, and they each fixed their jumble of half-off clothing before they moved, hand in hand, down the corridor of their home.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed this first part. Part Two (the Christmas fluff) coming soon!


End file.
